Social bots
Social media bots are automated software or programs used to engage in social media platforms.
Social bots can interact with humans and answer their questions online without getting tired.
They can sound very human but in reality they are just automated accounts which are controlled
by codes. Social bots are algorithms and pieces software which uses artificial intelligence to
carry out conversations with humans and automate tasks, the purpose being, assisting humans.
They are very useful for businesses as they help building strong customer relationships by
delivering target content, helping them with their queries and by anticipating user reactions.
Businesses benefit a lot from these social bots as depending on the niche and platform they are
used on, they can be programmed to perform various tasks like sending messages, answering
calls, liking posts, helping users find information online.
The aim of artificial intelligence and social media bots in the field of online marketing is not to
fully replace human-to - human interactions, but to help business owners and marketers in more
efficient consumer interactions. Many sectors like, retail, travel, entertainment, education, etc.
use social bots as assistants.
All this may sound but using of social bots is not completely risk free. Poorly programmed social
bots can sometimes do more damage than good as they can confuse users and waste their time
instead of helping them. One thing we should remember that no matter how efficient these bots
are, these bots cannot understand context like humans do. Bots can also sometimes participate in
spreading fake news and the effects of it can be so intense that it can influence the general
perception of a political or social event. Bots which are created for malicious purposes can
participate in spreading malware and can also steal data from other accounts.
Malicious social bots can be used for a lot of purposes which are as follows:
Artificially amplifying the popularity of a person, post or movement- Sometimes we see
social media accounts with a huge number of followers and we may think of that person as
influential which might not be the case always as bots are used to increase the number of
followers. These follower bots are bought and sold in the black market.
Influencing elections- A study by First Monday, found that around 400,000 social media
bots created as much as 20% of political discussion on social media on the day before the
2016 U.S. presidential election.
Manipulation of financial markets- These bots are used to also manipulate financial markets
by spreading bad news about and corporation which in turn would affect the company’s
reputation and it’s stock prices.
Phishing attacks- Fake followers of social media and social interaction will help reassure a
victim that he can trust their scammer.
Spreading spam- Social networking bots are also used for purposes of illegal advertisement
by spamming the social web with links to commercial websites.
During the US 2018 elections, a team led by computer scientist Emilio Ferrara analysed bot
activity compared to bot activity during the US 2016 elections. They analysed about 250,000
active social media users who addressed both the 2016 and 2018 US elections and found more
than 30,000 bots. Throughout 2016 they found bots based mainly on retweets and large numbers
of tweets about the same post. When online human social interaction has grown, however, so
have bots. Just like humans were less likely to retweet as much as they did in 2016 during the
2018 election season, bots were less likely to post the same messages in high volume.
Considering all the positive and negative aspects of social bots and taking note of all the ideas
presented in the article we can say that social bots are going to be a very influential part of the
social media platform in the near future. The use of it is only going to increase in the upcoming
future and we cannot deny the fact that as much as it’s going to help businesses it is also going to
be used for malicious purposes but again that is the thing with technology, it’s a boon as well as
a curse. Just looking at the negative aspects of it, we cannot overlook all the benefits businesses
and corporations can derive from it. In conclusion, use of AI and social bots cannot be avoided
but at the same time techies need to come up with solutions for privacy issues and malware.
https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-ca/blog/grow-your-business-with-social-bots
https://www.cloudflare.com/learning/bots/what-is-a-social-media-bot/
https://eandt.theiet.org/content/articles/2019/09/social-media-bots-are-becoming-more-human-and-
difficult-to-detect-study-shows/ (By E&T editorial staff, Published Friday, September 6, 2019)
